Traditionally, suitcases and other luggage carriers are designed with wheels at the bottom to permit the luggage to be easily rolled across flat surfaces. Without wheels, an individual would have to carry the luggage which could be tiresome and unwieldy, and could cause unwanted delay while traveling. Instead, wheels allow an individual to easily transport the luggage by smoothly pulling the luggage while walking. However, while traditional wheeled luggage facilitates luggage transport over a flat or planar surface, the design poses a problem when an individual is traveling over vertical surfaces such as stairs or curbs. An individual, in transporting traditional luggage over stairs, must exert energy to pull the piece of luggage vertically up to clear each step or curb. This method can be tiresome when an individual must walk up a flight of stairs or a high curb. Alternatively, an individual can drag the luggage along with him or her while walking up stairs. However, this method allows the piece of luggage to slam into each step, which could result in damage to the stairs, the luggage, or articles carried within the luggage. Also, the impact of the luggage with the stairs is often absorbed through the handle creating odd forces against the hand, which could result in injury to the user.
Some locations such as airports and train or bus stations have escalators, elevators, or ramps that allow travelers to roll their wheeled luggage to a higher location without the need to lift the luggage over stairs or curbs. However, not every staircase or curb has an escalator or ramp close by to facilitate luggage transport, and some public places and residential areas lack any means to facilitate the transport of wheeled luggage over stairs. Additionally, the use of elevator and other means to travel between floors of a building is often inconvenient and can be time consuming to find. What is needed is a device that is a part of, or can be added to, wheeled luggage to facilitate the transport of the wheeled luggage up or down vertical obstacles such as stairs or curbs. Specifically, the extendable sled device can be connected to wheeled luggage and can be easily deployed when a user encounters a vertical obstacle, such as stairs and can be stowed against, or within, the luggage when it is not needed.